If your organization doesn’t have a data resiliency strategy, you’re courting a potential disaster in the event of a data breach or loss. For any business, data resilience should be a crucial component of your operation.
You know that sudden disasters, both natural and manmade, can occur, and there’s also the constant threat of a cyberattack. So, do you have a plan in place if something happens? In other words, are you confident your organization can recover lost data? If the answer is no or you’re unsure, the next step is creating a robust data recovery plan.
Not sure where to start? Here are a few tips to help you protect and recover your stored data.
Your data resilience strategy may differ from other businesses in your industry, and this is normal. Every company is different, and what works for one may not be the best option for your business.
To help you, here’s a brief look at some common strategies you may want to implement in your organization:
Running regular backups is one of the oldest and most effective data resiliency strategies, and there’s also a good reason why it’s popular and effective.
A backup is simply copying existing data and storing it in a separate location—this way, you have multiple copies of your data ready to go as needed. If one copy of the data is lost, you’ll have at least one backup to replace the missing information. A good tip is to routinely test the stored data to ensure it’s recoverable if ever needed.
Data encryption is a compliance standard in some industries dealing with personal or sensitive information. For example, in the healthcare industry, patients’ health information is routinely stored.
If the information is breached, it’s a violation of several industry standards, including HIPAA regulations. Non-compliance fines for data breaches can be hefty, and data encryption can help you avoid the potential penalties.
Encrypting data simply means the information is unreadable without the key, so if the data is breached, it’s essentially useless to hackers. Another benefit of encryption is that it can help prevent third parties from accessing and tampering with your stored data.
This form of data resiliency strategy may not be necessary or affordable for all businesses. Small companies may not have the budget or IT personnel to manage more than one server.
However, if possible, having multiple servers is a great way of protecting your stored data. That way, you’ll always have a server online if one goes down.
Some of the other benefits associated with having multiple servers include:
An easy and cost-effective way for businesses of all sizes to protect their stored information is to send their data to the cloud. Prices for cloud storage are relatively inexpensive, and you can access your data at any time. Since your data is in the cloud, you can also access it from almost anywhere you have an internet connection.
Storing your data in the cloud helps ensure it is protected from security breaches and other types of disasters. Remember; the cloud is scalable, meaning you don’t have to purchase multiple servers to host your day. For large and small businesses, this can be a real cost-saving measure.
A disaster recovery plan is a strategy every business should have. With an effective recovery plan, you can minimize data loss while ensuring employees have access to the information necessary for their jobs.
While disaster recovery plans can vary, most have one aspect in common. The critical data is identified, making it easier to know where to focus the recovery efforts. Identifying critical data also ensures this is the information first recovered which can limit any shutdown times. Don’t forget to include a list of who to contact if a disaster occurs.
You can create the best data resiliency strategy but it’s ultimately worthless if your employees are in the dark. Remember, they’re the ones who’ll be doing most of the recovery work.
Call a team meeting, identify the lead personnel, and go over the data resiliency steps while ensuring that no one has any questions. On top of this, you may also want to post the data recovery steps in an employee common area. Emails are great unless the power goes out, so stick with printing out the instructions for that additional degree of resiliency.
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Your data resiliency strategy doesn’t have to be complicated, it only needs to protect your stored information. Think about what’s best for your business, and what will produce the best results. Your strategy may include multiple steps or only one. The number of steps isn’t important, only that they allow you to recover lost data.
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